Japan Today
national

Officials dealing with COVID-19 working nearly 400 hours overtime a month

31 Comments

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© KYODO

©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.

31 Comments
Login to comment

Somebody needs a calculator. This does not add up.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

Isn't that four times the rate that Abe capped the overtime at before it would be illegal? I'm going to go ahead and guess that no charges will be filed and the government will simply apply some lip-service and some vows to it.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Japan's top government spokesman has expressed concern about the excessive amounts of overtime being put in by officials in charge of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, describing working nearly 400 extra hours per month as "very abnormal."

So Japan's response to the pandemic should be orders of magnitude better than other countries , for example New Zealand's, that do not engage in such overtime practices?

Like Abe and Suga, humble bragging about all the overtime they put in while having very little to show for it.

15 ( +15 / -0 )

391 overwork hours + 22 days off 8 normal hours is 176 hours more or total of 567 hours of work in a month.

That is the equivalent of 23 days non stop work at 24hrs a day. Must be a Dentsu guy claiming this

18 ( +18 / -0 )

At least they are on a civil servant salary unlike poor Taro Suzuki managing the local McDonalds and contemplating suicide.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

So much work done by so many people, resulting in so very little progress.

21 ( +22 / -1 )

it almost like going to work on Monday morning, and comming home on Sunday afternoon and not clocking off in-between.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Are decisions that hard to make? Yes the need to look important is tied to working long hours, sacrificing family and free time. When a simple yes or no would do, but that doesn’t show your sacrifice for actually making a decision.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Officials dealing with COVID-19 working nearly 400 hours overtime a month

Considering the inefficiency dealing with the pandemic since the beginning of the pandemic... this is living proof that working longer hours does not correlate to increased productivity.

18 ( +18 / -0 )

400 hrs a month Overtime? That’s 100hrs a week on top of the standard 40?. Idiots really they are useless can’t even do their job in 40hr need an extra 100hr. And we pay for these clueless idiots to sit at their desks come in up with reasons why it’s so difficult to make a decision?

17 ( +18 / -1 )

However, the question is, are they understaffed or are the staff they have extremely slow and inept?

7 ( +7 / -0 )

That is the equivalent of 23 days non stop work at 24hrs a day.

I would gladly work that as my business is finished because of the pandemic and my partner has to work two jobs.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

So out of the literally millions of government workers here (over 2.8 MILLION) in Japan, these folks are bust their butts, yet getting nothing accomplished.

Yup, about right for here!

Used to be a saying "Many hands make light work" but in the case, its more like, "many hands, and many hours, accomplishes nothing!"

Just goes to show that just because a government hires someone who can pass a test, does not mean they know how to work!

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Great title.

Officials dealing with COVID-19 working nearly 400 hours overtime a month

staff at Officials Cabinet Secretariat's Office for Novel Coronavirus Disease Control were in the office an average of 124 hours outside of normal work hours, with one person clocking 391 hours.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

This is just like so many companies in Japan. When sales are down, the bosses make everyone sit at their desks for endless hours of "overwork" doing nothing but sitting.

Years ago there was a government group created to encourage people to work less overtime. The group was disbanded because everyone in the group was working too much overtime.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Let's be honest, folks.

This isn't "working" overtime as we know it.

This is government apparatchiks proving how indispensable they are by doing nothing for days and days and days on end, in the certain knowledge that there is a bottomless well of taxpayers' cash to claim overtime pay from.

Walk past MOFA or any of the government offices anytime after midnight. At least 30% of the lights will be on. Because they know they will get paid for sitting there, and the fact that they sit there, patiently clocking up the hours, proves they won't rock the boat later on.

I spent 15 years working with these people. They don't have any concept of the fact that they work for us. We are a bottomless purse. And nothing will ever be done about it.

Yet more grift.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

I am not surprised at all, I actually believe it is the case considering the well known bureaucracy and redundancy in the Japanese official work, not to mention the 5 or 6 Hankos that need to go on every sheet of paper.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

very low productivity in burocratic environments, i.e. "officials". overtime mostly shows loyalty. i wonder what would happen if some of them decide to take a break and go to cancun.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

And what exactly are they doing during that overtime, without testing and availability of vaccines? Count pencils and copier paper sheets?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

 Japan's response to the pandemic should be orders of magnitude better than other countries , for example New Zealand's, that do not engage in such overtime practices

I have a family member working on the vaccine roll out in nz and their working 6:00~21:00.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The Japanese Gravy train calculator is quickly being unraveled.. the numbers don't stack up for even an Elementary School Kid trying to figure out why they cant have more screentime....

3 ( +4 / -1 )

MMMMMMMM 400 HRS ???.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I suppose all this extra work is for designing the mascot of the corona vaccine.

That's the real priority in Japan.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The ignorance on what government officials do shows on here.

Japan 2021:

Covid has remain stable.

Japan has remained stable.

9 months ago all of you said Japan will fail.

Death count low.

New infections low.

All the hard work and the reason why Japan doesn't have Death numbers 10x worse it's because of the hard work done by many. Including government officials.

I appreciate your hard work to keep Japan safe. Thank you!

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

They don't have any concept of the fact that they work for us. 

In reality, it's "us" that work for them, and the majority of "us" dont have any concept of that fact either.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

When does the amount of overtime become evidence of incompetence?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

In Japanese culture, it's believed that hard work will solve any problem, regardless of how flawed the structure or environment one is working in.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Staff members spent 104 hours in the office outside of normal work hours in November and 89 hours in December.

You have a rounding error, title says nearly 400 hours.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I feel like this headline is misleading with then average is 124 and 391 is just one person.

I'm also highly suspicious of that because it's an average of about 19 hours per day with no days off. How much of that time was falling asleep at the desk because there's no other time they were doing it.

Either way it's a systemic failure, where both the pandemic response and the labor standards and horrendous.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites